


Vindication

by xanyad



Category: Carmilla (Web Series), Carmilla - All Media Types
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-19
Updated: 2015-09-20
Packaged: 2018-04-21 11:05:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4826753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xanyad/pseuds/xanyad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Directly follows the events of episodes 31&32 of season 2.  Eventual Hollstein.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I am an obsessive person and often when I’m working on schoolwork I listen to one song on repeat for several hours. Right now, because I am anxiously awaiting the release of Every Eye Open, I am listening to Leave A Trace while I edit and it made me think of angsty Carmilla. I want to write more fiction/fun stuff and so I am trying to start writing fanfiction again as a way to be less intense and boring about writing. 
> 
> Directly follows episode 32 of season 2.

There’s no right and there’s no wrong; there’s only ever more to the story. Carmilla wished more than anything that Laura would understand that. She tries not to blame her for thinking in such a structural, binaristic way- she’s only human of course. But when Carmilla, and worse, Maddy, was made to suffer because of the black and white, all or nothing, way Laura insisted on perceiving the world, Carmilla felt more than a little angry, and justifiably so. And yet, despite the anger and the hurt, Carmilla found herself drawn right back to the one place she had sworn to herself just hours before that she would never go near again. 

She may have been the one to warn them all against coming anywhere near her again, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to stay away. Part of her rationalized the way she lurked around the citadel as a desire to stay close to the remains of what she had left of her family. She masterfully hovered in the shadows as only someone who had hundreds of years of experience in stealth could accomplish and it dawned on her that for the first time in just as long, she was no longer beholden to anyone. The absence of Mother, who had domineered Carmilla’s life in one way or another since her rebirth, was suddenly exacerbated by the devastating loss of Maddy who, inadvertently or not, had taken up Mother’s deterministic presence in her wake. Carmilla struggled to swallow, not yet ready to process or fully accept the loss of the person who had been there for her in moments she could not have possibly endured otherwise- the person who had literally saved her life on several occasions. It weighed heavy on her that at the end of everything, which only seems impending at this point, Carmilla knew that Maddy’s death was her responsibility and she was going to have to find some method of coping with that. Laura may have told Danny how to disarm Maddy, but it was Carmilla who told Laura. And in her mind, that made all of this her fault. Not to mention that had she not interfered in the first place a year earlier, none of this would even be happening. Even if Laura had somehow managed not to be sacrificed to the Angler Fish, which Carmilla didn’t rule out of the realm of possibility since there was something defiant and special about Laura, the sacrifice of the other girls would have proceeded as usual, Carmilla would still have her family, and it would be business as usual at Silas University. However, Carmilla had interfered and if there was one thing Carmilla was sure of throughout her long life, it was that there is no way to undo the past. 

She’d been scorned by love before, of course. Being herself, attractive and charming and sure of those facts, Carmilla had obviously had all kinds of trysts and was bemused by the thought that she had likely been privy to every conceivable tribulation or relationship drama. From love triangle to love hexagon, from hetero to lesbian to queer to before such concepts had possibly been conceived of as such, Carmilla had been there and done that. And then there was Laura. Certainly none of her past relationships had directly resulted in the demise of her entire family; typically it had been the other way around. But glibness aside, it nagged at the core of who she was that she had let this happen. 

Another smaller part of her mind couldn’t help but suggest that the reason this was exceptionally difficult a situation for her to process was because it wasn’t Laura who killed Maddy in self defense- it was Danny. Whether Danny lived or not was a relatively moot point to Carmilla. Sure, she had grown to tolerate her but on another level, when you’ve lived for as long as Carmilla had, you have to develop an immunity of sorts to the flow and passing of the people who occupy space in your life. But Carmilla knew that if Laura had been the one to destroy Maddy, if she had to lose Maddy to save Laura- that was a choice she was willing to make. She didn’t tell Laura what she told her lightly. Carmilla had dedicated a truly excruciating amount of time to preparing herself for the reality that if she told Laura how to kill Maddy she may actually do it. Maybe part of her had an unhealthy curiosity about whether or not Laura was capable of killing. And maybe she had simply wanted to level the playing field. Maybe, and Carmilla was remiss to admit it because, again, inevitabilities, but maybe she was nowhere near ready to watch Laura die. Either way, it nearly killed Carmilla (or perhaps, more accurately, nearly killed the rest of them) to know it was Danny who took her sister’s life in the end after all that time. Because she didn’t think Danny was worth it, sure, but more than that, she couldn’t believe that Laura would betray her like that. Carmilla realized that of all the things she was fixating on, it seemed to bother her most that Laura, Miss “Do The Right Thing”, could have possibly justified sharing Maddy’s secret with Danny. Did Danny mean that much to Laura? What else had Laura told Danny that Carmilla didn’t know? What else had they shared that she wasn’t aware of? Suddenly, overcome by a combination of anger, sadness, desperation and (although she would never admit it) jealousy, Carmilla slipped inside the room where Laura lay asleep. Overpowered by the need to know what in the world would possibly possess Laura to betray her like that, to do any of the things she had done, she couldn’t keep hiding silently in the shadows for another moment. “Perry?” Carmilla heard Laura sleepily mumble as she made herself fully present in the room. “You had it right last time, cupcake.” 

\---- 

Will write more! I hope someone enjoyed it!


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An extension of chapter 1 which focuses more on Laura's perspective.

“You had it right last time, cupcake.” 

\--

The words made her heart jump into her throat. She hadn’t expected to hear that voice ever again, or at least that’s what she’d forcefully instated as her mantra over the past twenty-four hours. Part of her wanted to know how long she’d been there- long enough to have seen Perry come and go, evidently- but not as much as she needed to know why. Lafontaine’s voice echoed in Laura’s head. While Laura hadn’t tried to hide the fact that their comments had thrown her for a loop (she hadn’t been that pine-y, had she?!), it was their initial “How weird is it that we’re back to wondering whether Carmilla wants to save you or kill you again?” that Laura felt was particularly relevant at the current time. Laura struggled to gain control of her frantic thoughts, confident that saying anything was better than nothing- she couldn’t let Carmilla have that much power over her- as she blurted out, “I hope you know you bursting in on me while I’m sleeping isn’t me coming near you…Not that I’d blame you for killing me, but I just wanted to be clear. I know that since this was your… under any other circumstances I’d leave, but with the mobs and the pitchforks and me stupidly thinking you wouldn’t want to come back here…” Laura was never really sure if it was a helpful or detrimental thing that her tendencies toward speed talking and verbosity were heightened in stressful situations. She was certainly unsure of that tonight as she struggled to read anything off of the outline of Carmilla’s form in the darkness. 

She could still feel her heart breaking as she admitted to Carmilla that she had told Danny how to do it, how to kill Maddy. It’s funny how it’s not in the moment that you commit the act of betrayal that it hurts the most. It’s in the moment when you have to face the person who you love the most and tell her that you didn’t put her first, you did what was best for you- or worse, what was best for someone else- because you had some misguided notion at the time that it was the right thing to do. While there had been moments in the past year that Laura had begun to doubt if that right thing existed at all, she was really beginning to realize now, more clearly than ever, that it probably doesn’t. 

And worst of all, she’s not even sure she regrets what she did for the right reasons. Sure, she didn’t necessarily want Maddy to die. Even in the beginning when she hadn’t known her at all and thought she was probably the reincarnation of evil itself, she mostly just wanted her to go away. It wasn’t until Maddy arrived that things with Carmilla started to unravel. While Laura knew that wasn’t entirely true, it was all too easy to blame Carmilla’s overprotective, mysterious, murderous sister for many of the issues in their relationship. She wouldn’t usually let herself think these things about a person she recently watched die, but things weren’t as simple as that anymore. Besides, if Laura was being completely honest with herself, the reason she was prone to bouts of enthusiastic hyper-sympathy and extreme moralism as of late was because the way she felt when she was around Carmilla urged her to be so not those things. But what do you do when you realize that everything you know about the world isn’t true anymore? 

Maybe she should have started thinking about these questions earlier, like around the time when she realized she was in love with a vampire, but it never quite seems like a good time to find a way to let go of everything you’ve been told to think. And for what? The answer came to her immediately- for Carmilla. But given the last twenty-four hours, where did that leave her? No matter how much she wanted to, Laura couldn’t forget the way it felt to have Carmilla hold her like she last had- so forceful and so angry and so unlike any of the other times she had touched her before. She tried to rationalize that maybe that’s how Carmilla had felt when Laura had tricked her and they had held her captive. Carmilla had forgiven her for that, hadn’t she? But no matter how much she wished they could be constructed as analogous situations, Laura was pretty sure that they couldn’t. All that had existed between them then was a tentative acquaintanceship and an unspoken attraction, a far cry from the many intimate and beautiful moments that they had come to share since then. 

Thinking of it that way made Carmilla’s earlier comments seem even more scathing and Laura could feel the prickle of more tears threatening to fall even though she was sure she had cried herself dry hours before. The words echoed in her mind: “God she was right. You are a selfish, callow girl. And I am the fool who trusted you,” and even worse, “All that life to end like this. For what? For you. Be good for me, Carmilla. Change for me, Carmilla. Burn down everything you ever loved for me, Carmilla.” If what she said was true, if she was as angry and vindictive as she claimed to be, Laura could not fathom any possible reason why Carmilla could have come back here other than to kill her. All of her wanted to believe that it couldn’t be true, that someone who had known her in the way that Carmilla had could not possibly hurt her in such an irrevocable way. But here they were, Carmilla staring her down in an unreadable state from across the room as Laura shivered under her gaze in a way she hoped she’d never have to again. “If you’re here to kill me, could you just get on with it please?” 

If it were even possible, Carmilla felt her heart crumble a little more as Laura whispered those words from across the room. If she were going to kill Laura she would have done it already, but she knew she could never do that. “You don’t just kill someone you sacrificed several members of your family to protect,” The humour was dark, even for Carmilla, but she didn’t have anything else to offer. Laura struggled to read Carmilla’s voice, not sure of her best or safest course of action. Her heart broke for Carmilla, it really did. She would be the first to admit that she had probably not taken into account the full gravity and significance of Carmilla’s relationship with Maddy before she decided to let Danny in on Maddy’s secret. Even though everything about this situation made her question her decision-making abilities, Laura had to believe that a part of her thought that neither she nor Danny was capable of killing someone as powerful as Maddy. Maybe, she thought, part of her wouldn’t believe that Carmilla would give her that kind of power. Any way she thought about it, on a list of moments in which you know your apology is going to make absolutely no difference, this took the prize. Instead, Laura decided to lean on the opposite of her instincts as she swallowed hard and sighed, “I don’t know why I told her. I don’t know why I did this to you, to her...” Her inner dialogue chanted “she’ll never forgive you” as Laura retrained herself from practically bouncing in her seat out of nervousness as she waited for Carmilla to react, to say anything. 

“You didn’t ask me to tell you how to kill her,” Carmilla finally whispered after an excruciatingly long pause. “That’s part of the reason I couldn’t stay away. This was the last place that I was with her and it’s my fault…” her voice cracked as she surprised herself and Laura by allowing such an admission. “I know I told you to stay away. I know I hurt you and threatened to kill you and I know you didn’t ask for it… but I did it all for you anyway. I did it all for you, Laura, and now I have no where else to go and there’s no one else…” In that moment Laura understood more than ever before that saying about how once you love someone, you couldn’t ever really stop. She suddenly felt sure of herself, rushing across the room to catch Carmilla in her arms as she came undone. 

“I know I told you that I didn’t ask you for any of this, but I think maybe I did.” Laura whispered as she stroked Carmilla’s hair. “I don’t want you to think that this is all your fault. I did something wrong by telling Danny. I need to take responsibility for that, I know I do. But I also need to know if this is a temporary thing, like an eye of the storm situation, or if there’s even a chance… if there’s a chance that we can move forward from this…” She wanted to finish the thought with together, if there’s a chance we could be together again… but she was too afraid she already knew the answer to that question. 

“We’re really, really bad for each other, aren’t we?” Carmilla mumbled, never more certain that the answer was yes. She’d known from before they had met that she could only be bad for Laura- she had, of course, arrived at Silas with the purpose of luring her to a certain sacrificial death- but there were moments when Carmilla had been pretty sure that Laura was succeeding in acting as a moral, or at least positive, force in her life. But now, sitting here with her head in the lap of the girl with whom she shared at least half of the responsibility for the destruction of one of the oldest and most powerful vampires Carmilla had ever known, those moments were long gone.


End file.
